Hot hot hot!

Good news this week! The official Eastpak Antidote Tour 2008 Trailer is online!

The two Austrian gigs are announced: "rendez-vous" at Graz (Listhalle) the 24th November and at Wien (Gasometer) the 25th November.

Make also sure you have a look at this year's edition EAT official backpack which will be released on 1st September. And as a great news never comes alone, it's also the release date of the Flogging Molly backpack!!! Much better than a patch on your bag, not?

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Home sweet home

A couple of days ago I managed to set my dirty feet on Swedish soil again. After four very hectic but of course interesting weeks of touring in Europe we were finally back in our home country. The venue was KB (Malmö/Sweden) and we actually just played there with our brothers in Dark Tranquillity only a month ago. And now we we´re delighted to get another opportunity to siverly damage the place again with the Eastpack Antidote Tour!..:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

The same day I also got known that the show will be live recorded by P3 (A well known radio station in Sweden) and will be broadcasted on P3 Live around x-mass, so a bad show was not an option.  All this very important bullshit like first gig in Sweden and on top of that a live record arose some nervousity. For the first time of the entire tour to be fair. The gigs we done so far on the tour have all been opening slots and the audience doesn't really care of the opening band (Well I guess we proved that teaching wrong on this tour however) but the Malmö night we had to push it to the limits, not to just pull of a good show but also to sound surgical good and not play like retards. However I´m happy to announce that everything went fine and the crowd was amazing. Malmö rules for sure! We also got our hands on a CD with the recorded stuff afterwards and even if it was a rough mix it sounded very well in my opinion. Soilwork also got their show recorded and literarily can´t wait to hear the shows on radio soon.

The next day (Sunday) was a travel day to successfully get this chaotic circus over to the land of a thousand seas, namely Finland. The boat trip was utterly boring but went smooth with no Iceberg crashes or pirate hijacks. 12 hours later we arrived in Helsinki. Last time we were in Finland it was full summer but now I couldn't put me feet outside the bus without freezing my balls off. Now I totally grasp the concept why there is more saunas per square meters then people in this country. Tonight show was first meant to be held on Tavastia but it was sold out so fast so they had to move it to a bigger venue, that's fucking sweet. The tour also got company by the great Swedish band "The Haunted" and the evening was a great success. Everyone did great and it was a real killer to see The Haunted play again. Last time I saw them was like four years ago or something.

The trip back to Sweden was (if possible) even more boring but I managed to sit down a couple of hours on Rich´s computer and write a new killer Sonic song. I´m really satisfied with this new shit so I guess the trip was worth the time after all. Right now the tour is stocked in Stockholm and tomorrow we will hit Debaser at Medis, will be great for sure.

At last I want to welcome our friends in Avatar onboard on the Eastpak antidore tour, who will tag up on the Swedish dates. It will be a real honor to play with you guys side by side again. I also want to say thanks to the Dark Tranquillity guys which we shared the bus with for no less than four weeks. We really had a great time together. We love you guys, you are the fucking best! hehe

Peace out Roger - Sonic Syndicate

 unfortunately isn't on the tour anymore.   

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After weeks

After weeks of waiting the Eastpak Antidote Tour was finally at my door. The many buses had finally arrived at KB in little Malmö for a whole lot of metal!

To be able to survive such an evening a girl needs to prepare… in other words: having a delish burger at the famous Vinylbar! I had of course the Fat Elvis with peanut butter… it's so good it's to die for! Prepped with food and beverage it was time for the show to begin.

First on were this evening was Avatar and boy did they do a good job in warming the hearts of the hardcore metal fans; the guys totally rocked! 

Second on was Sonic Syndicate, Falkenbergs finest! Glad to have them back in Malmö kicking ass! Awesome gig lady and genitals!

Next up was Caliban from ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Germany. With an intense, high energy performance including a nice "Wall of death" the Malmö crowd couldn't be happier!

For the grand finale I was finally about to see Soilwork (my first time)… needless to say that I wasn't disappointed! I didn't think the venue could get any warmer or sweatier but Soilwork in combo with sing-a-longs and crazy moshing proved me wrong, it was like a Finnish sauna in there!

Happy, content and a little bit dizzy due to the overheated room (or was it the Cosmo?) me and my hunny headed home… good things, good things!

See ya next year!

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skatespots and clubs

On my way to the backstage club, Munich, where the first stop of the Antidote tour was located in our lovely country germany-I expected some hairy, dark dressed, old metal freaks, who had some row meat inlaid in whiskey on the table. My vision of the audience came quite near a funeral and my thoughts about an after-party---how the hell do they celebrate after-parties???..:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 I didn't know…Well, some of my expectations verified, but which ones don't matter at this point. My last peripherally contact with "such special" music- to remind you of the line up: dark tranquillity, sonic syndicate, soilwork and caliban was in my earlier "gorilla bisquits" days. The names of the bands and the short teasers on the antidotetour.com somehow gave me a strange, even fearful feeling as I arrived at the backstage club.

A cold wind blew in my face as I was leaving the car…and it felt quite bleakly at this grey sky middle of fall whatever day…Then I stepped in the venue and noticed a lot of hard working people running around setting up the stage, moving instruments, doing soundchecks and having discussions. Passing by, everybody gave me a quick but friendly "hi there" or a frank look. It got warmer at this time and I could take my jacket of. Then I got welcomed by the tourmanager and he showed me around and gave me a quick info of the event and the bands again. Ok-my work was nearly done, guestlist checked, give aways on the right spot and now…the concert…ok.

Still one hour to go till the concert was starting-I walked kind of lost backstage…and somehow I got more and more familiar with the smell (reminded me of our skatetours), the drinks (this reminded me even more of our skatetours) and especially the people: I met an old friend I grew up with! We went to the same concerts, skatespots and clubs about 10 years ago and this day we found each other here both "working" to some extend…Amazing…He introduced me to his band and I had a good time talking, drinking and monitoring the bands backstage as well as in the middle of the audience later on. After-party: of course! With birthday cakes, champagne and an affecting speech by some bandmembers with smokey eyes and black nails to a being chocked up birthdaykid/tourmanager …Sometimes its just good to be forced to "visit" other worlds and open the eyes and the mind for seemingly strange things…I had a great evening: personally, music- and jobwise.

3:39 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Hi all bloggers!

Week 4 of the Eastpak Antidote tour just started...:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

We have a day off in ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Linz, Österreich and the Rock Club Posthof kindly offered us to use their dressing rooms.

Yesterday we played in Budapest, a very nice town.

We arrived early but we had the wrong address to the venue so we got a pretty good sightseeing of the town, hahaha.

The driver called the promoter and he guided us to the right spot.

When we got there Bobo the tour manager for Caliban called and told us their tour buss broked down so they don't know if they are gonna make it on time for the show. (their story will come later)

When we finished the call Jimmy (drum tech) said that Dark Tranquillity also has some of their gear on Caliban´s buss.

The day went by and we had a superb dinner.

When the doors opened Caliban arrived in a rented tourist buss.

We loaded in the most important gear like guitars, basses, cymbals and  made sure they could use the rest of the gear from the other bands

The show was completely SOLD OUT!!!

Tomorrow when I see the Caliban guys I will ask them to tell their story about what happened to their buss.

Rock On!

BIFFEN

5:54 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

We had a blast doing a sold out München

The Eastpak Tour is steamrolling through Europe and to be fair I have seen more things the last couple of weeks than I have in the last years! For example during our Paris gig we got the opportunity to visit the spectacular Eiffel Tower. And I tell you something that this is one hell of a big structure right there. After two madly boring hours in the line-up to the elevator (No, the stairs wasn´t really an option) we finally were on our way to the top. We all got up safely without any heart-attacks or elevator hijacks. As for me I can barely walk out on my own balcony without getting scared to death (which is located on the first floor) but there I was gazing over Paris from 250 meters(!!!) up. Seems like me and Superman have more skills in common than just the strength after all...:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

In Barcelona all in Sonic got up ridicules early (as usual I guess). The sun was shining and it was full summer out there not to speak about the beach which was a five minute walk from the venue. So most of us was swimming in the ocean and sunbathing until we had to sound check. The gig in Barcelona went really well and afterwards we had a big party at the well known rock bar Pepes Bar with free drinks for all the bands, fucking awesome! (To other bars, see and learn).

The Upcoming day we had a day off in Milano Italy eating Pizza and being VIP guests on Primal Fear and U.D.Os gig on the venue Alcatraz. The place our tour the very next day was about to destroy. This was probably one of the best places in this tour so far, with really good catering, tasty beer and huge backstage areas, and least but not last excellent fucking crowd! You Italian bastards made my day for sure and I can´t wait to be back!

Today we had a blast doing a sold out München Germany and tomorrow we will conquer Vienna in Austria, Hope to see you all Austria's head there because it´s going to be a real killer evening!

Peace out - Roger, Sonic Syndicate

10:17 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Hi there Rockers

We are half way thru the tour and everything is running fine...:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

We´ve seen UK, Netherlands, France, Belgium, Spain and Italy

I hope to see a lot of new faces in Switzerland, Austria, Germany,

Poland, Hungary Finland and Sweden.

Find me (BIFFEN) in the audience – I might have a gift for you!

Rock on!

/Biffen

6:15 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Listen up Helsinki!

First up we're pleased to announce the Helsinki date is now SOLD OUT!
Secondly, The Haunted will be taking Dark Tranquility's place for this one date.
See you there!

6:30 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Near miss!

Near miss!
Waking up in busy London somehow feels strangely familiar. Our bus is parked right by the Islington Academy, a decently sized venue right by a cozy shopping area. As I stumble outside, still half asleep, backliners are carrying countless boxes of merch to the elevator. The first couple of U.K. shows have been a total blast! We've toured with Dark Tranquillity and Caliban before and hanging out with them again is a lot of fun. It feels good to be here, especially when I think back of the chaotic week leading up to this tour!
Rewind to September 24^th, the day I was to fly out to Sweden. We had planned on four intense days of rehearsing to prepare the set and practice some songs of our new album Sworn To A Great Divide. Since I'm currently applying for a work permit in the U.S., a temporary travel parole is required for me to leave and enter the country. But of course, despite months of preparation and filling out piles of boring paperwork, said travel parole didn't show up in time. As you can easily imagine, the U.S. government doesn't take immigration matters lightly and I was more than a little worried about possibly being denied entry upon my return home. So at the very last minute I had to cancel my flight. And then the circus began!
Countless phonecalls to my lawyer; endless visits to the immigration service; writing letters requesting to expedite the permit; desperately researching possible solutions anywhere from internet forums to contacting the Congress; all the meanwhile trying to find an eventual replacement drummer. This complete stress went on for days, and to make things even worse, our tour manager's mother got ill, forcing him to stay home. At that point, everything started to look pretty desperate. I absolutely had to book a flight as soon as possible… Then, miraculously, an email came saying my parole was in the mail! I hopped on the first flight to Copenhagen, took the train to Helsingborg and went straight to the practice space for what would be our only rehearsal for this tour.
So, yep, it sure feels good to be here!
/Dirk..:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

5:41 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

we gonna start
Current mood: awake

so its not long now and the tour is going to start soooon great news is that biffen our roadie will be out on tour....make sure you get down there to say hello, the man is a living legend.....we will also be giving away a few goodies too....sick.

i think there will def be some cool stor signing happening too i will try and post these dates and venues on the site later so you can plan to go and meet the bands....

stoked.....

heard that the eastpak skate team was in russia where they kicked ass and also listening to some russian music acts...rock!!! Unless you know where to find rock and metal....there is a whole load of techo going down there!!!

I think that vans will also be hosting a signing session in berlin....so more newss on that too....

peas

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